Whoops

[koilungfish]

14/1/07 - The Lull

          Alone in her part of their office, Elita-1 heard Optimus come in the front door, scraping his smokestacks on the doorframe again. The place was small, designed for smaller mechanisms, but it was what they could afford.
          "You're back early," she called to him, looking away from the window and the sunbathed towers of Iacon outside.
          "I found a job," he said, coming into their office. He sat down on the floor beside her, resting his arms on the arm of her chair, pressing his head into her hand as she stroked the side of his face. "It's security."
          "A private company?"
          "No, state security, working for the Emirate." There was an awed hush in his voice.
          "How did you get that?" she wondered aloud.
          His looked down, looked away, despite that unspoken resolution she knew he'd made always to look at her, never to be like the mechanisms who questioned her existence with their gazes, who shied away their stares as if she was ugly, deformed. "The commander, Ultra Magnus, is a blueprint brother. Externally."
          "Ah."
          "Have you found anything ... ?"
          "Nothing." She rested her hands back in her lap, let her gaze drift back out to the warm, bright towers, boldly gold through the dim-framed window. "Nothing at all." She felt him rest his hand on her shin, there there, always there fo her.
          "You'll find something," he said quietly.
          "I've run out of jobs to apply for," Elita-1 said flatly.
          "We're both in the same trailer," Optimus said in that same soft, warm, comforting tone. "There has to be something for you."
          "You found something because you look Iaconian," Elita-1 said dryly, resting a hand on his head. "Nobody wants me."
          "There are laws against discrimination," Optimus said, quietly, finally acknowledging the problem that had dogged them since they arrived; the crime of being different.
          "Optimus ..." She sighed, and shuttered the windows. They sat in the dark, lit only by the low glow from the computer console. "We're warbuild. Warriors. Killing machines."
          "We're people," he replied, optics luminous as moons. "We have the same rights as everyone else."
          "You have a credit rating two hundred and fifty units lower than any of your blueprint brothers just because you have gun link-points and targeting sensors." Elita-1's free hand tightened into a fist. "Form does not mean function!"
          He didn't ask if she wanted to be rebuilt. He'd promised not to ask again.
          Elita-1 stroked Optimus' antennae. "The Office of Employment finally got back to me. They don't understand why we don't want to join the army. They offered me a partial rebuild."
          "What?" He sounded shocked, sat up sharply.
          "They recommended downgrading my impact absorbers, lightening my hull and removing my targeting links so I can have job-specific parts installed." Her voice curdled with bitterness. "They said I could be made employable within a week."
          "But there's nothing wrong with you!" Optimus exclaimed. He pressed his face into her hand, cupping her hand with his own. "You're beautiful."
          "I'm a warrior." She leant over and rested her forehead against his. "Why were we built as warriors? What good are Autobot warriors?"
          He nudged her head with his, tapping the point of his faceplate against her cheek. "Because someone thought Cybertron needed us."
          "Does it?"
          "Somewhere. We just have to find them."
          "And in the meantime?"
          "We endure the stares. We live with the questions." He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, drawing the edge of his faceplate across her mouth with a sound like a blade sharpening on a steel. "We will not be afraid to be fighters, and we will not be ashamed of who we are."